Alexei Urmanov, the 1994 Olympic champion, swept to victory in the men's program in the Russian National Figure Skating Championships, which ended at Moscow's Sokolniki Sports Palace over the weekend.


With the cream of Russia's crop sidelined by sicknesses, favorites prevailed in all four events -- men's and women's singles, pairs and ice dancing.


Urmanov, 21, was the only reigning world or Olympic champion to take part at the championships. He dominated the men's competition by landing all his triple jumps and skating a clean free program.


Unveiling his new program, "The Best of Tchaikovsky," Urmanov clearly was the top skater in a men's field of high quality, although he withstood a strong challenge from Ilya Kulik of Moscow, a talented young skater and the current world junior champion. Urmanov, coached by Alexei Mishin, landed all his triple jumps but left out his unique quadruple jump in the long program.


Nevertheless, he received the highest scores for artistic impression -- 6,0 -- from two of the nine judges.


Urmanov skated his new program wearing one white glove and one black, symbolizing good and evil.


"This is life," Mishin said of his skater's program. "And in life we have black and white. As it is now, when we have many beautiful things but we also have Chechnya."


Some of Russia's strongest skaters, however, were not on the ice in the four-day event, which attracted several thousand spectators. Oksana Grishuk and Yevgeny Platov, the current Olympic and world champions in ice dancing, were unable to perform because of fevers, and reigning world pairs champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were sitting in the stands because Shishkova complained of an allergy.


In the absence of Shishkova-Naumov and Mishkutenok-Dmitriev, Marina Eltsova and Andrei Bushkov, the 1993 European Champions, came in first in the pairs competition. Maria Petrova and Anton Siharulidze, the world junior champions, were second and Natalia Krestianinova and Alexei Torchinsky took third.


In ice dancing, a new duo of Anzhelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov won gold in the absence of Grishuk-Platov.


In the women's competition, the top three finishers were all Muscovites. The gold went to Maria Butyrskaya, the silver to Olga Markova and the bronze to Irina Slutskaya, the current world junior champion.